A fireworks display follows the “Salute to America” ceremony in front of the Lincoln Memorial, on July 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. The presentation featured armored vehicles on display, a flyover by Air Force One, and several flyovers by other military aircraft. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)

The Washington Monument is visible as the US Navy Blue Angels flyover at the conclusion of President Donald Trump’s Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

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People watch the fireworks display on the National Mall during Fourth of July festivities on July 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Trump is holding a “Salute to America” celebration on the National Mall on Independence Day this year with musical performances, a military flyover, and fireworks. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

First lady Melania Trump stands with Vice President Mike Pence as President Donald Trump stands onstage at right during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A man leans on a large US flag as people gather on the National Mall for the “Salute to America” Fourth of July event with US President Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, July 4, 2019. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

The Washington Monument is visible as the US Navy Blue Angels flyover at the conclusion of President Donald Trump’s Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Fireworks seen from the Lincoln Memorial explode over the Potomac River for Independence Day, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Donald Trump, standing with first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and others, watch as the US Navy Blue Angels flyover during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Thursday, July 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Karen Pence and others stand as the US Army Band performs and the US Navy Blue Angels flyover at the end of an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Audience members celebrate during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Members of the U.S. Secret Service detain a man after an attempted flag burning in front of the White House on Independence Day July 4th, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Trump is holding a “Salute to America” celebration on the National Mall on Independence Day this year with musical performances, a military flyover, and fireworks. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Audience members photograph a flyover in front of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle as President Donald Trump speaks during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Supporters of US President Donald Trump gather on the National Mall ahead of the “Salute to America” Fourth of July event with US President Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, July 4, 2019. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Protesters use umbrellas to block Jason Cullins, a supporter of President Donald Trump from Lafayette, La., before Independence Day celebrations, Thursday, July 4, 2019, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

A woman takes a photo near an armored military vehicle during the Fourth of July parade in Washington, DC, July 4, 2019. A Humvee is parked on a street in Washington, DC, on July 4, 2019. – Tanks in the heart of Washington, fighter jets screaming overhead, and a speech from the Lincoln Memorial: President Donald Trump has promised the “show of a lifetime” Thursday as he turns the Fourth of July into a personal primetime extravaganza. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Guest cheer as US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive for the “Salute to America” Fourth of July event at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, July 4, 2019. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

One of two Bradley Fighting Vehicles driven into place in front of the Lincoln Memorial for President Donald Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ event honoring service branches on Independence Day, Wednesday, July 3, 2019, in Washington. President Donald Trump is promising military tanks along with “Incredible Flyovers & biggest ever Fireworks!” for the Fourth of July. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Donald Trump speaks during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Thursday, July 4, 2019. The Washington Monument and the reflecting pool are in the background(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

Guest wait for President Trump to take the stage on July 04, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Trump is holding a “Salute to America” celebration on the National Mall on Independence Day this year with musical performances, a military flyover, and fireworks. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump speaks during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Protesters move a Baby Trump balloon into position before Independence Day celebrations, Thursday, July 4, 2019, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wave as they depart an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Everett Loud, of Corning, N.Y., and dressed as President Abraham Lincoln, stands near a sculpture of President Donald Trump holding a cell phone while sitting on a toilet before Independence Day celebrations, Thursday, July 4, 2019, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Crowds gather in the rain along the Reflecting Pool before President Donald Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ event honoring service branches on Independence Day, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. President Donald Trump is promising military tanks along with “Incredible Flyovers & biggest ever Fireworks!” for the Fourth of July. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The Marine Silent Drill Team Performs at President Donald Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ event honoring service branches on Independence Day, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. President Donald Trump is promising military tanks along with “Incredible Flyovers & biggest ever Fireworks!” for the Fourth of July. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Protesters unveil a statue of US President Donald Trump tweeting on a toilet, at the National Mall ahead of the, “Salute to America” Fourth of July event with US President Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, July 4, 2019. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

The U.S. Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps performs during an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Robert Campbell, bottom right, of Charleston, W.Va., tries to stay dry under an umbrella hat as rain falls before Independence Day celebrations, Thursday, July 4, 2019, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Donald Trump points to the cheering crowd as he leaves an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The Blue Angels (six F-18s) fly overhead as people gather on the National Mall during the “Salute to America” Fourth of July event with US President Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, July 4, 2019. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump celebrated “the greatest political journey in human history” in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy but cheering crowd of spectators, many of them invited, on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. Supporters welcomed his tribute to the U.S. military while protesters assailed him for putting himself center stage on a holiday devoted to unity.

As rain fell on him, Trump called on Americans to “stay true to our cause” during a program that adhered to patriotic themes and hailed an eclectic mix of history’s heroes, from the armed forces, space, civil rights and other endeavors of American life.

He largely stuck to his script, avoiding diversions into his agenda or re-election campaign. But in one exception, he vowed, “Very soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars,” actually a distant goal not likely to be achieved until late in the 2020s if even then.

A late afternoon downpour drenched the capital’s Independence Day crowds and Trump’s speech unfolded in occasional rain. The warplanes and presidential aircraft he had summoned conducted their flyovers as planned, capped by the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team.

By adding his own, one-hour “Salute to America” production to capital festivities that typically draw hundreds of thousands anyway, Trump became the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on the Fourth of July.

Protesters objecting to what they saw as his co-opting of the holiday inflated a roly-poly balloon depicting Trump as an angry, diaper-clad baby.

Trump set aside a historic piece of real estate — a stretch of the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the midpoint of the reflecting pool — for a mix of invited military members, Republican and Trump campaign donors and other bigwigs. It’s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech, Barack Obama and Trump held inaugural concerts and protesters swarmed into the water when supporters of Richard Nixon put on a July 4, 1970, celebration, with the president sending taped remarks from California.

Aides to the crowd-obsessed Trump fretted about the prospect of empty seats at his event, said a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to be identified. Aides scrambled in recent days to distribute tickets and mobilize the Trump and GOP social media accounts to encourage participation for an event hastily arranged and surrounded with confusion.

Back at the White House, Trump tweeted an aerial photo showing an audience that filled both sides of the memorial’s reflecting pool and stretched to the Washington Monument. “A great crowd of tremendous Patriots this evening, all the way back to the Washington Monument!” he said.

Many who filed into the sprawling VIP section said they got their free tickets from members of Congress or from friends or neighbors who couldn’t use theirs. Outside that zone, a diverse mix of visitors, locals, veterans, tour groups, immigrant families and more milled about, some drawn by Trump, some by curiosity, some by the holiday’s regular activities along the Mall.

Protesters earlier made their voices heard in sweltering heat by the Washington Monument, along the traditional parade route and elsewhere, while the VIP section at the reflecting pool served as something of a buffer for Trump’s event.

In the shadow of the Washington Monument hours before Trump’s speech, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall “Trump baby” balloon to protest what activists saw as his intrusion in Independence Day and a focus on military might that they associate with martial regimes.

“We think that he is making this about himself and it’s really a campaign rally,” said Medea Benjamin, the organization’s co-director. “We think that he’s a big baby. … He’s erratic, he’s prone to tantrums, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.”

The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group’s permission to move it or fill it with helium, Benjamin said.

Protesters also handed out small Trump-baby balloons on sticks. Molly King of La Porte, Indiana, a 13-year-old Trump supporter in sunglasses and a “Make America Great Again” hat, happily came away with one.

“They’re making a big stink about it but it’s actually pretty cute,” she said. “I mean, why not love your president as you’d love a baby?”

A small crowd gathered to take pictures with the big balloon, which drew Trump supporters and detractors.

“Even though everybody has different opinions,” said Kevin Malton, a Trump supporter from Middlesboro, Kentucky, “everybody’s getting along.”

But Daniela Guray, a 19-year-old from Chicago who held a “Dump Trump” sign, said she was subjected to a racial epithet while walking along the Constitution Avenue parade route and told to go home.

She said she did not come to the Mall to protest but ended up doing so. “I started seeing all the tanks with all the protests and that’s when I said, ‘Wait, this is not an actual Fourth of July,’” she said. “Trump is making it his day rather than the Fourth of July.”

Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.” But he glossed over a host of expenses associated with the display of military might, including flying in planes and tanks and other vehicles to Washington by rail.

Not since 1951, when President Harry Truman spoke before a large gathering on the Washington Monument grounds to mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has a commander in chief made an Independence Day speech to a sizable crowd on the Mall.

Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats running for president, said: “This business of diverting money and military assets to use them as a kind of prop, to prop up a presidential ego, is not reflecting well on our country.” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.

Two groups, the National Parks Conservation Foundation and Democracy Forward, want the Interior Department’s internal watchdog to investigate what they say may be a “potentially unlawful decision to divert” national parks money to Trump’s “spectacle.”

Trump has longed for a public display of U.S. military prowess ever since he watched a two-hour procession of French military tanks and fighter jets in Paris on Bastille Day in July 2017.

Washington has held an Independence Day celebration for decades, featuring a parade along Constitution Avenue, a concert on the Capitol lawn with music by the National Symphony Orchestra and fireworks beginning at dusk near the Washington Monument.

Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.

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